Tag Archives: VMware

Security and flexibility don’t often end up in the same sentence, especially when it comes to delivering IT as a service. But VMware Horizon DaaS Platform and Nutanix hyper-converged infrastructure together are able to deliver the same value proposition with our validated reference architecture for desktop and applications as a service (DaaS).

Together, VMware and Nutanix provide what is arguably one of the best solutions for secure multi-tenant desktops for service providers and the enterprise. Continue reading →

A constant theme I hear when talking to customers about managing their virtual, physical, and cloud-hosted environments tends to center around the challenges they face with applications and users. In particular, the questions that customers are looking to solve are ones like how can I simplify management of my 100s of apps throughout their lifecycle, from provisioning, to updating, to dealing with app conflicts? How can I optimize delivery of applications to all the different environments, devices, and users I manage? How can I drive down costs of managing user personas while delivering a consistent experience across devices? And these are just some of the questions I hear. Well, we’ve been working to help tackle these challenges with a complete Workspace Environment Management solution using our Horizon technologies.Continue reading →

With 2014 in our rearview mirrors, many workplace conversations are turning to performance reviews.

Employees are racking their brains trying to document all of their accomplishments over the past 12 months, while managers have the equally daunting task of acknowledging the successes of all direct reports.

At VMware, we’ve developed an integration between Socialcast and Workday that is helping us to alleviate these very real pain points, while simultaneously saving countless man hours in the process.

Social Business Intelligence (SBI), Socialcast’s in-app analytics platform, is enabled for all Socialcast communities and has many great features that add tremendous value for community administrators.

Today, we would like to highlight some of the most useful SBI features that we think every admin should leverage to increase adoption and engagement in their Socialcast community.

Queen Maria Eleonora of Sweden kept her dead husband, King Gustav Adolf, in her bedroom for 18 months before he was finally interred. Microsoft retired XP April 8, 2014. Now, 8 months later, it’s time for VMware® Horizon® to accept that loss and plan a memorial.

We don’t do this lightly; we know that many customers are still using Microsoft XP. But with Microsoft dropping support, it is time for VMware to align with Microsoft’s decision. As Windows XP will not be support, there will be no drivers for new hardware, libraries that our products use will be incompatible and XP will not get the benefits of regular security fixes. For all these reasons, VMware is clearly outlining the support plan for Horizon to give our customers time to plan a transition.

There’s been a lot that has changed with the release of VMware® Horizon® (with View) in June 2014. Aside from the support for RDS hosted desktops and published applications using PCoIP, there is also a new feature called Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA). CPA enables entitlements to desktops between multiple View pods within or across multiple data centers.

F5’s Local Traffic Manager (LTM), Access Policy Manager (APM), and Global Traffic Manager (GTM) solution has been able to address this challenge for some time. From a 30,000-foot view, here is how today’s integrated VMware/F5 solution works when detecting an existing session without Cloud Pod Architecture:

You have all had that knot in the pit of your stomach. If you, like me, have ever managed an IT environment, you know what I mean. It happens every Wednesday morning after the 2nd Tuesday of the month. What patches did Microsoft release this time? How will it impact your environment? Will you be spending the next few days and nights testing and deploying patches, keeping your fingers crossed that the patches do not break anything?

What IT administrator would not want to manage only one or two Windows images? Everybody would like that, and let me tell you, it is possible!

Utilizing VMware Mirage, you can reduce the number of Windows images you need to manage, with an end goal of managing one image, or two at most (x32 and x64). Before you use Mirage, however, you have some work to do! You need clear processes, a well-defined management and update cycle, and people who can properly assess the level of urgency and relevance of those updates or patches. If you have those in place, then you are ready to implement a technology solution that will support a simplified image management solution. Continue reading →

This summer we released VMware Horizon 6, the latest version of our leading end-user computing platform. Perhaps the most exciting feature of Horizon 6 is its expanded support for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, including hosted applications. Whether users need virtual desktops, hosted apps, or shared desktop sessions, VMware Horizon is the only platform you need. This means it is now possible to migrate off your Citrix XenApp infrastructure! Summer 2015 marks both the termination of support for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and the end of life for XenApp 5.0. If you are still running XenApp 5 on Windows 2003, the timing is perfect for a migration to VMware Horizon. And we are working feverishly to release tools, guidance, and services to provide what you need to make your migration a success. Continue reading →

No need to be alarmed. Apple has announced that Mac OS X 10.10 is available. But if you are running the latest Horizon Client for Mac, version 3.1, you do not need to change anything. The current client works beautifully with Yosemite and looks beautiful doing it.

For weeks, we have been testing the Horizon Client 3.1 with the OS X Yosemite beta. Now that OS X 10.10 has shipped, we can confirm that the Horizon Client for Mac that we shipped in September is fully compatible.

It has been a few months since we released Horizon 6, yet it feels like it was just yesterday! With all the activities since the release (webinars, workshops, road shows, and so on), I have had little time to blog about one of my favorite aspects of the Horizon 6 release—Mirage 5.0. Mirage 5.0 introduced several new features, including Windows 8.1 support and enhancements to the Mirage Gateway. I would like to tell you about one of the cool new features that might have gone unnoticed, but which can help desktop administrators in a big way—alarms. Continue reading →